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Concentration techniques during study

Some specific techniques can help you stay focused on your material. These include:

* "Be here now." Every time you find yourself distracted, say "Be Here Now." Say it aloud if possible, otherwise just repeat it in your mind. Then bring your attention back to your task. In the beginning, you may find that you do this a lot. Over time, you gain more focus and your mind stays where you want it.
* The spider approach. If you hold a vibrating tuning fork next to a spider web, the spider usually comes to see what's happening, thinking it may be an insect. Do it a few times and the spider eventually chooses to ignore the distraction. You too can train yourself to ignore distractions. The sensations from your ears and eyes are simply sensations you can choose whether to react to or not.
* Paragraph marking. If you are reading a book or article, tick each paragraph as you read it. Use a pencil in case you want to re-read parts of it later.
* Keep a distraction log. Every time you find yourself distracted, draw a tick or write the current time on a separate piece of paper. This is your distraction log. Initially the number of distractions may surprise you. By highlighting your distractions, you can begin to control and reduce them.
* Write down distractions. If something important comes up as a distraction, simply write it down so you can deal with it later. Better yet, set a distraction time. Agree with yourself to take a break and deal with those distractions at that time.
* Switch topics. Rather than spending a long time on one particular topic, switch between various unrelated topics if possible. The brain loves variety and rewards you with better concentration.
* Make it interactive. If studying with others, plan some time to get together and discuss the material you are learning. Even if you are not at the same stage in the course, simply agree to spend ten minutes listening to one another talk about their current study topic.

Longer-term improvement of concentration

The previous techniques are good for keeping up concentration while you study. Some longer-term techniques can improve your overall concentration as well. These include:

* Games. The old card game of "Concentration" is still effective in improving concentration. If you have not come across it, the basic idea is to lay down a set of playing cards in a grid, all face-down. You then turn over a pair of cards. If they match number and color (if using playing cards), then you take them out of the grid. If they don't match, you place them back face down and pick another pair. Better concentration, through practice, results in a shorter time to clear the grid. You can also play with a friend for competition. The one with the most pairs at the end of the game wins!
Many expensive software packages claiming to improve concentration still use this principle in many guises, often with pictures instead of playing cards. There are also free computer games, based on Concentration, available on the Internet. Using these and some notes in a spreadsheet to track progress can be just as effective as the more expensive packages.
* Meditation. Meditation is an effective way of improving your concentration. See my comments in "Mental Relaxation" for more comments on meditation.
* Other exercises. Many other exercises can help you increase your concentration. From simply staring at a fixed point or candle, to martial arts, these can all help improve your overall concentration.

Your brain needs exercise just like a muscle. If you use it often and in the right ways, you will become a more skilled thinker and increase your ability to focus. But if you never use your brain, or abuse it with harmful chemicals, your ability to think and learn will deteriorate.

Here are 5 simple ways anyone can squeeze a bit more productivity out of the old gray matter.

1. Minimize Television Watching – This is a hard sell. People love vegetating in front of the television, myself included more often than I’d like. The problem is watching television doesn’t use your mental capacity OR allow it to recharge. It’s like having the energy sapped out of a muscle without the health benefits of exercise.

Don’t you feel drained after a couple hours of TV? Your eyes are sore and tired from being focused on the light box for so long. You don’t even have the energy to read a book.

When you feel like relaxing, try reading a book instead. If you’re too tired, listen to some music. When you’re with your friends or family, leave the tube off and have a conversation. All of these things use your mind more than television and allow you to relax.

2. Exercise – I used to think that I’d learn more by not exercising and using the time to read a book instead. But I realized that time spent exercising always leads to greater learning because it improves productivity during the time afterwards. Using your body clears your head and creates a wave of energy. Afterwards, you feel invigorated and can concentrate more easily.

3. Read Challenging Books – Many people like to read popular suspense fiction, but generally these books aren’t mentally stimulating. If you want to improve your thinking and writing ability you should read books that make you focus. Reading a classic novel can change your view of the world and will make you think in more precise, elegant English. Don’t be afraid to look up a word if you don’t know it, and don’t be afraid of dense passages. Take your time, re-read when necessary, and you’ll soon grow accustomed to the author’s style.

Once you get used to reading challenging books, I think you’ll find that you aren’t tempted to go back to page-turners. The challenge of learning new ideas is far more exciting than any tacky suspense-thriller.

4. Early to Bed, Early to Rise – Nothing makes it harder to concentrate than sleep deprivation. You’ll be most rejuvenated if you go to bed early and don’t sleep more than 8 hours. If you stay up late and compensate by sleeping late, you’ll wake up lethargic and have trouble focusing. In my experience the early morning hours are the most tranquil and productive. Waking up early gives you more productive hours and maximizes your mental acuity all day.

If you have the opportunity, take 10-20 minute naps when you are hit with a wave of drowsiness. Anything longer will make you lethargic, but a short nap will refresh you.

5. Take Time to Reflect – Often our lives get so hectic that we become overwhelmed without even realizing it. It becomes difficult to concentrate because nagging thoughts keep interrupting. Spending some time alone in reflection gives you a chance organize your thoughts and prioritize your responsibilities. Afterwards, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s important and what isn’t. The unimportant stuff won’t bother you anymore and your mind will feel less encumbered.

I’m not saying you need to sit on the floor cross-legged and chant ‘ommm’. Anything that allows a bit of prolonged solitude will do. One of my personal favorites is taking a solitary walk. Someone famous said, “All the best ideas occur while walking.” I think he was on to something. Experiment to find the activity that works best for you.

Conclusion – I hope you aren’t disappointed that none of the techniques I’ve proposed are revolutionary. But simple, unexciting answers are often the most valid. The challenge is having the will to adhere to them. If you succeed in following these 5 tips, you’ll be rewarded with increased mental acuity and retention of knowledge.

Young adults and children enjoy a level of flexibility that most adults can only dream of. Unfortunately, many of the exercise programs designed for children do not allow them to fully explore their physical skills. Yoga presents kids with a chance for them to use this natural flexibility to their advantage. Yoga helps children not only to improve physical strength, but also to build self-esteem, concentration skills, and social interaction skills.

Kids are encouraged to explore and discover the relation between mind and body in a fun-filled way through Yoga. Learning Yoga can be a fun and creative. It is very helpful for kids as their bodies are still developing. The use of animated poses and basic stretching and breathing exercises promotes strength, flexibility, coordination and body awareness. Breathing and visualization techniques teach kids how to focus, relax and develop self-control.

Exercising can improve concentration and focus, stimulate the child's imagination and help to release energy in a fun and safe environment.

Yoga therapy for kids also promotes inner-strength, confidence and self-esteem. It creates a feeling of well-being, respect and love for others and the self. As you may know, yoga is an ancient form of meditation from India. The word, yoga comes from the Sanskrit language, and means to yoke or unite the body, mind, and spirit. One type of Yoga is Kundalini Yoga. It focuses on strong breathing and dynamic exercise and is suitable for children because of their active minds and bodies.

Children who participate in yoga have an advantage. For example, yoga helps children become self-confident and self-aware, as well as physically fit. Yoga has been known to help with many medical conditions, such as asthma, insomnia and digestion disorders. Enrolling your kids in a yoga class and encouraging them to participate in this activity can be very helpful.

WHEN the student is well practised in concentration, so that he can put on the mood of it like a garment, let him or her proceed to meditation and contemplation.

In all our acting and thinking we shuttle to and fro between two poles of our being — advancing without and retreating within, in both of which we become more and more alive, until we are sufficiently mature to unite the two.

Advancing without. I may look at a flower casually as I pass. I have not been properly aware of its qualities, but only that there is a flower there. But I could pause attentively, and say:

“That yellow color is really nice. How yellow it is! And the shape is beautiful, as the petal turns this way, then that way! And the scent is delicious! And the texture — it is heavenly!”

When I thus pause I bring more of myself to the flower. In this moment I am wedded to the flower. We live together, without reservations. I give myself to the flower, and I believe that in some unseen way the life in the flower is also enhanced. At all events I am enhanced, to a point of great happiness. Let me enjoy this moment of rich living. Let me not lose any of it, even by thinking, “What can I do to preserve this moment?” I need not fear to give myself, for I cannot give myself away.

In thus bringing more of myself to the flower, I am more awake and alive than I was.

But there is death — the moment dies, the pause dies, the flower dies.

Retreating within. Still, I do not die. In a quiet place in my house, and in a quieter place in my mind and heart, the moment lives for ever. I recall it. “A pale simulacrum of the moment”, someone may say. Not so. Pale simulacra result from pale living. Anyhow, now pause, eyes closed, and take the memory of that flower within, into the depths of your thought. Say to yourself, “Here I am, a mind. Alas, a flat, dull and seemingly unprofitable mind”. Perhaps; but not so, if you say, “Come in, little flower, into my lonely mind”. And you meditate with the flower. And soon you will be worshipping the flower and saying, “Wonderful flower, holy flower — forgive me, forgive me, my pride and contumely”. And the flower will forgive, and there will be love and ecstasy. That is meditation.

Our life is the same at both poles. By bringing out the whole of myself to meet the world my life is enhanced. By taking that realest experience within, it is still further enhanced. And just as the outer experience gives a vividness to be carried into the meditation, so does the meditation give new power to future experience. After the meditation I may meet the flower again, and it will be to me more a flower than it was before — in color, form, scent and everything.

How I am made strong by this shuttle action of full living!

It is a shuttle action that will produce full cloth, for soon my meditation-mood will be present while I am advancing without and the object-experience will be clear and strong when I am retreating within.

The whole of life is of this kind and follows this process, but ordinarily it is carried on without much attention. The world seems designed for this purpose. We make things — and in so doing concentrate upon them; and then they react upon us. As we go through life, it is as though we were children making toys for ourselves, playing with them awhile, and then turning to something else. The toy is a limitation to the child, inasmuch as it engrosses the attention in the small field of the object and out of the wider and more diffuse field of indefinite attention.

Even the body and the senses conduce to the same end, shutting out most of the world and admitting only a little of it, but that little is clear and strong, somewhat as in a camera a distant picture is formed upon the plate or film because the small hole in front admits only a limited quantity of light rays. I have often thought that if ordinary men could suddenly be endowed with super-physical senses, as they sometimes wish, they would not benefit thereby, but would be overwhelmed by the variety and volume of new experience. There would not be enrichment of mind, but only worse confusion than already is, as if in the round of daily action we were to see all the operations of the interior of the body. The consciousness of the average man is sufficiently diffused and indefinite; let him practice concentration so as to make it clearer and stronger, and then meditation so as to expand that clearer, stronger, consciousness over a larger field. Let him become master of himself in the small region where he is ruler, and then the time will be ripe for him to have a more expanded life.

Returning to meditation, notice that it is preceded always by concentration, that concentration produces a very wide-awake consciousness, consciousness at its best, and that in meditation this wide-awakeness is preserved and applied to full reflection upon a chosen subject. Meditation is thus the opposite of going to sleep. It is the very completion of thought upon that subject. Sleep, mind-wandering, day-dreaming, drift, dullness and disorder are all absent in meditation. [Patanjali, the ancient exponent of meditation, whose aphorisms are acknowledged to this day all over India to be the most informative ever written on the subject, gave the whole process as threefold - concentration, followed by meditation, passing on to contemplation. His definitions of concentration and meditation are (I) Concentration is the binding of the mind to one place, and (2) Meditation is continued mental effort there. This is my own translation, which is very literal.

Vipassana meditation is a more advanced form of meditation that was developed by the Buddhists as a method of reaching the state of Enlightenment. Vipassana meditation, also commonly referred to as Insight meditation, is the examination of the mind and spirit during the course of meditation. Vipassan meditation is typically coupled with a focusing meditation so that your body and spirit are calmed and relaxed as you delve deeper into your own mind and spirit for insight. Samatha meditation is the focusing meditation typically used to assist in being prepared for Vipassana meditation.

If you are interested in Vipassana meditation, chances are you will need to learn about Buddhism and similar religions. Vipassana is a rather spiritual form of meditation that is reserved for Buddhists. The teachings on Vipassana are typically kept within Buddhists circles, as reaching this level of insight is considered sacred.

If you are interested in Vipassana meditation, it is important that you understand why it is done. Vipassana meditation is used as a resolution for mental stresses and other problems. Through the pursuance of insight, someone participating in Vipassana meditation can find the sources of anxiety and discord within the mind. By identifying, or gaining Insight, on the problem, the mind and spirit can be soothed. In addition to this, Vipassana meditation is used as a preventative measure. By identifying the problem, the problem can be resolved so that the mind and spirit do not fall out of balance again. Vipassana meditation can take a lifetime to master, as Samatha meditation must first be mastered.

If you are pursuing Vipassana meditation, you should consult with an elder of the Buddhist religion. As Vipassana meditation originates from the Buddhist religion, this is the best way to gain insight on how this form of meditation must be approached. You should be prepared to be patient while learning Vipassana meditation, as there are many steps that must be taken before you can successfully achieve the first tier of Vipassana.

How Vipassana meditation works is dependent on the school of Buddhism you are learning. Some schools have only a small number of techniques that must be mastered before Vipassana is accessible to you. Others have many more techniques, although the learning of each of these techniques may be easy to master than disciplines that have less techniques. In either way, Vipassana meditation requires a certain amount of dedication and determination to master, and a willingness to learn